White
Noise is a decidedly average Sixth Sense wannabe in which
Michael Keaton (of Batman and
Beetlejuice fame) plays a husband whose dead
wife communicates with him via cell phones, static on the TV and so forth.
(Hence the title.)

It is Michael Keaton's first starring role in quite a
while, but one unlikely to revive his career (is he sure that it was his
wife, and not his career calling him from the dead?) since he plays quite
an emotionally uninvolving and bland character. Some more time spent on
the movie's characters would have been a good idea, but instead we have to
cope with a fuzzy plot that lacks any focus or clarity.

THE DISC: Unfortunately we didn't get sent a final
product for review purposes by the film's publicists, hence the missing
disc
rating. Because of piracy fears what we instead got was the feature film
on VHS and the DVD special features on a separate disc.

The feature film itself was in pan 'n' scan with hundreds
of property of Universal messages floating around. Occasionally the
movie would turn Black & White. All to render this particular copy
unusable for any pirates intent on uploading a digital copy on the
Internet.

Now, while I fully understand and sympathize with the
studio's concerns regarding piracy, I don't think this is exactly the way
to go around fighting it. After all, DVD pirates would use this copy
anyway since people who smuggle a video camera into a cinema and point it
at the screen aren't exactly into Quality Assurance issues here . . .

The dead communicating to the living like this is called
EVP (electronic voice phenomena) and the movie ?
and the special features on the DVD - goes out
of its way to convince us that it is indeed something very real. If you're
of a skeptical bent like me, you'd probably write it off the same way you
did Elvis sightings, Bigfoot and UFO abductions.

The special features include several of those
Unsolved Mysteries-style ?documentaries?
which investigates an issue without presenting a viewpoint different to
those of the onscreen persons who all believe in Elvis sightings / alien
abductions / whatever. Needless to say they're quite dull and an opposing
viewpoint by an eminent scientist would have been welcome. (But who does
this sort of thing now that Carl Sagan is dead?)

The included deleted scenes are more like extended scenes
and not particularly interesting. It is clear why they were left out of
the movie.

WORTH IT? There are a few scares to be had and
you'll probably do worse.

RECOMMENDATION: Ultimately White Noise is
something you rent when a really scary movie like
A Tale of Two Sisters is out . . .